


Take a Chance (I Love You)

by hiza-chan (callunavulgari)



Series: Dark Month Collection [17]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Mental Institutions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-19
Updated: 2012-04-19
Packaged: 2017-11-03 21:53:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/hiza-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her name is Luna Lovegood, and she is Harry's favorite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take a Chance (I Love You)

**Author's Note:**

> Dark Month 2010, Day 22, for leahnari -- Harry/Luna, Madness. I totally suck at making these dark, don't I? Also, this is set... earlier. 50s, maybe? Hence... that one thing. You'll get to it.

There is a girl on the second floor, Ward C, fourth door down on the right. She is magnificent, clever and wonderful- her eyes are nearly as pale as her hair, opalescent, blue.  
  
Her name is Luna Lovegood, and she is Harry's favorite.  
  
She speaks of other worlds; forgotten creatures that cloud your head, unicorns and fae, skeletal horses that you can only see if you have seen the dead. She whispers spells into her pillow and when people sneer at her- call her Loony, she only smiles prettily and moves on.  
  
Her fingers are constantly twitching to her left ear- reaching as if to grab something that isn't there.  
  
When she had first met Harry, she'd smiled; a real, true smile- not the silly fake one she used when she was trying to be polite. This one was airy, wistful, as if just waking from a lovely dream. Dimples appeared against the pale skin of her cheek and her eyes had gone fever bright. She'd smiled at him, cocked her head at his scrubs and eyed his brow as if searching for something. Said, "Don't I know you, Harry Potter?"  
  
He volunteers because it makes him feel like he's accomplished something. That he's saved this one, little piece of the world.  
  
Nowadays, he volunteers because of Luna. Because of the paleness of her skin and eyes and hair, the richness of her smile. Because she looks at him and tells him about her dreams as if she's excited. She is never afraid of her madness. She embraces it in ways that send the nurses into tizzies. Decorates her room with little glowing balls of light that she'd gotten from god knows where, asks Harry if he'd perhaps seen any gnomes in the garden today and didn't you know, their saliva has many beneficial properties? She loves her world, and who is Harry to forsake her that?  
  
Her madness is what makes her truly lovely.  
  
The doctor's say that they are going to lobotomize her. That her father is just as mad and that surgery is possibly one of the only ways to truly fix her. Harry can't imagine all that pale hair stained with blood, can't imagine one side of her scalp shaved, or the nasty blank void that would dwell behind her eyelids.  
  
Luna smiles at him when he opens the door, an upside down grin that makes a smile of his own pull at his lips. She's dangling backwards off the bed, reading one of those silly newspapers she gets specially delivered. Her cheeks are red, all the blood having rushed to her head. He almost asks, _wouldn't it be easier to just hold the paper upside down?_ because then her eyes would go round in wonder and she'd say _Oh, you're right Harry!_  
  
But he has something to do. Something that he will probably come to both regret and take pride in. And perhaps it isn't the best idea, but given the circumstances it is the _only_ idea worth considering. So he grins at her; wide, open and unafraid. Tries to borrow something from the Harry Potter that dwells in her mind, the one that saves worlds and defeats tyrannical, magical, overlords. He may not be as brave as him or have the ability to save worlds, but he _does_ have the ability to save one girl. And he will.  
  
So he smiles and says, "So Luna, would you like to go see Paris?"


End file.
